Left Turns
by Story Please
Summary: A special story in honor of Severus Snape's birthday! It is his eleventh birthday and his mother is taking him to Ollivander's Wand Shop to get his wand. He is, however, very worried that he will not find one. Will one choose him or will he be stuck forever in the hell that is Spinner's End? Thanks to corvusdraconis for beta help!


**Left Turns**

It was bitterly cold all throughout London on that early January morning, and Diagon Alley was no exception. Nearly everyone was wrapped up securely in their thickest winter cloaks. There were a rainbow assortment of hats, scarves and gloves for good measure on those who were brave enough to be out and about in the freezing air, even as they refreshed their Warming Charms.

Luckily, even though it had snowed several days previous, the white on the ground had not yet turned into the dreaded and despised brown, unpleasant slush that seeped into shoes. This was especially fortunate for the scrawny, dark-haired boy wearing overly-large, worn out boots as he did his best to keep up with his mother's quick and even pace. It was obvious that she was his mother, for she was just as pale and had the same distinctive nose that he did, only hers was even more hooked and beak-like. Her mouth appeared permanently turned down at both ends and her dark eyes stared balefully ahead, daring anyone to step in her path.

"Come, now, Severus, don't dawdle," she croaked, her voice as worn down and weary as the threadbare cloak she wore. "Your father will be home from the mill by six and we do not want to be gone from the house when he returns."

He nodded and began to walk faster, pulling the overlarge men's collar up even higher around his face as he darted an envious look at a witch walking the opposite direction with a multi-colored woolen scarf wrapped three times around her neck and face.

They slipped into Ollivander's wand shop so stealthily that the bell barely tinkled as it shut behind them.

It was warm inside, and Severus could feel his toes uncurl as the magical heat filled his body.

"Good morning!" Mr. Ollivander said brightly, clasping his hands together. "Ah, Miss Prince, it's been ages since I've seen you last! I'm rather amazed that I've had any customers in this weather! Let me guess, the boy will be starting school in the fall? Then why are you bringing him so early in the year?"

"I'm no longer Miss Prince. It's Snape. _Mrs_ ," the woman said flatly, emphasizing her title, "My son, Severus, has just turned eleven today. He is within his rights to get a wand, even though his schooling at Hogwarts will not commence until the fall. As his parent and a magic-user, I shall like to request that you allow him to find a suitable wand."

Severus gawked and stared at high shelves filled with wands in the shop around him as his mother pulled open a drawstring purse and carefully laid out the odd Wizarding money in the wandmaker's hand.

"Most certainly!" Ollivander said with a short nod, "Come on then, young man. It's time for your wand to choose you."

"I shall wait here by the fireplace," Severus' mother said with a small cough. "Be certain not to take all day, or your father shall be most displeased."

Severus nodded and followed Ollivander, who looked at him with an amused expression over his horn-rimmed glasses.

"So, then, young man, has your mother told you anything about wands?" The shopkeeper was polite but not condescending, which Severus appreciated greatly.

"I know that you can't use them in front of Muggles, and they're only to be used at school before you turn seventeen," Severus said thoughtfully. "I also know that they usually look different and have different stuff in the middle, but I've never seen it."

"Would you like to know a little more about my wand-making process?" Ollivander seemed to be impressed and Severus nodded politely, knowing that this man stood between himself and his first real step towards becoming a real wizard. "There are three types of core used in my wands, though other countries have their own specialties. I prefer unicorn hair, dragon heartstring and, last but not least, the rare phoenix feather."

Severus nodded and looked around with wide eyes, as though expecting a dragon, unicorn, and a phoenix to come waltzing around a corner.

"Oh no, my boy, I'm afraid that my materials that I work with are mostly delivered after they've been given freely from their original owners, though I do know of one wandmaker from Bulgaria who keeps a bestiary off the side of his wand shop, but as I'm sure you know already, that would be rather difficult here on Diagon Alley. Now, let's see…" The wandmaker stepped around a shelf and bent down to rummage through a stack of wand boxes while muttering darkly about silly goblin zoning laws, giving Severus time to blush furiously with embarrassment alone.

Severus wondered if his wand would be special. His mother's wand had a unicorn hair core, which made her healing spells stronger, but it didn't have nearly as much power as the others he'd read about. Besides, unicorns were so...girly. He was certain that a unicorn hair wand would never allow him to become the powerful wizard of his dreams.

As though reading his mind, Ollivander reappeared holding three wand boxes.

"Let's try one of each, shall we?" Ollivander said kindly.

"Can I try the phoenix first?" Severus asked hopefully.

"Certainly!" Ollivander smiled politely, but Severus could tell from the wandmaker's eyes that he didn't think that the wand would choose him.

The wand was held out to him gently. Instinctively, Severus made to grab it with his left hand, when he realized what he was doing and froze, extending his right instead with a sheepish look. He shook the wand back and forth, but it only managed a tiny spark that made Ollivander shake his head disapprovingly.

"Try this one, then. Dragon Heartstring, twelve and a quarter inches. Made of ash."

Severus looked at it and felt his heart sink. It wasn't a very pretty wand, in fact, the end was crooked and the markings were rather plain compared to the phoenix core wand. When he touched it, it made a funny spluttering noise but did nothing else, and he gratefully handed it back to Ollivander, looking at the last box with a mixture of apprehension and excitement.

"Unicorn hair, fourteen and a half inches. Made with elder." Ollivander recited, holding the wand at the tips gently.

It was a nice color with simple rings up the entire length of it other than the slightly bulbous handle at the end. Severus took it, hoping that the wandmaker wouldn't notice his trepidation, and shook it twice as though waving it in the air for a dog to chase. A couple of green sparks shot out of it and Severus froze, terrified that he had chosen this wand, one that would only give him access to the pathetic healing abilities that his mother had. He did not envisioning himself healing cuts and bruises like some pathetic, abused housewife. He wanted _power_.

And he was willing to sacrifice to get it.

"Hm. Better, but not quite," Ollivander said, taking the wand back gently and putting back in its box.

Severus hadn't realized that his hands were shaking.

"Please. Not unicorn. Anything but that." He knew his voice was small and pathetic as he stared at the floor, but Severus knew that he had to say it.

"Whyever not?" Ollivander asked, obviously puzzled.

"I've read that they're weaker than the others. They're only good for simple things. Like healing."

"Hmmm….is that what you think?" Ollivander replied thoughtfully. "In my experience as a wandmaker, I've found that unicorn cores _do_ tend to be excellent at healing spells, but they also have some of the strongest potential when their wielders have faith in their spellwork."

Severus glanced towards the front of the shop as though expecting his mother to appear at any moment, and Ollivander smiled knowingly.

"Listen to me, Severus, you may be young, but you are not too young to know the truth of things. I know that your mother's wand has a unicorn core, but I also know that she has been worn down by the years. Why, when she first came to my shop, her wand shot a bright beam of light clear to the ceiling!" Ollivander spread his arms as though to indicate the movement of the light. "You are not your mother or your father. You have a choice about what sort of wizard you would like to be. Now, that choice is not always easy, and you will meet those who will tell you that they know the shortcut to power and prestige, but the truth is that the easiest promises are often as false as they are easy. Remember that the wand chooses the wielder, not the other way around."

Severus slumped and kept his eyes trained on Ollivander's shoes, blinking back angry tears. He knew that crying was stupid, but the thought that Ollivander might hand him another wand with a unicorn hair core made him seriously consider simply leaving without a wand at all.

Shaking his head to clear these thoughts, he gulped loudly and looked up, trying not to meet the wandmaker's eyes.

"Can you please show me more? I promise, I'll be happy with whatever you give me."

"It isn't about what I _give_ you, it's about what the wands want _from_ you," Ollivander replied cryptically. He walked down the next aisle, grabbing boxes at what seemed to be a random pace until his arms were full.

Severus followed slowly, his hands in his jacket pockets as he tried to work through his sulk.

"Now, then, I think it's time we try it for real," Ollivander said, motioning to a velvet-lined seat against the far wall of the shop.

Severus sat and reached out with his right hand again, but Ollivander shook his head.

"No, boy. It's time to use your true wand arm."

Severus blinked, uncomprehending, his voice coming out in a whispered rush. "But my mum told me that it's not proper to use a wand left-handed!"

"Pure-blooded nonsense, that!" Ollivander replied conspiratorily, "Now, then, let's try this one."

Severus stared at it skeptically.

"What's the core?"

"Try it first, and then I will tell you."

Severus grimaced but took the wand anyway, waving it back and forth with his left hand. A tiny shower of sparks came from the wand, but instead of looking happy, Ollivander scowled.

"Not quite right. Here, then, try this."

They went through a number of wands, each one showering them both with a small rainbow of sparks, and though it was more than Severus had ever managed, even when his mother had allowed him to try using her wand in an attempt to figure out if he was a squib, the wandmaker still seemed unhappy.

Finally, when Severus looked around and realized that a disorganized pile of wand boxes was lying around him in every direction, Ollivander was nearly tearing at his hair in frustration.

"None of them are right!" he moaned desolately.

"What about the one that made little comet-like things?" Severus suggested softly.

"It was nearly there, but there was still something off. Was it the wood? The core? Argh!" Ollivander muttered to himself.

Just then, there was a chiming noise as the front door to the shop opened.

"Ah! A customer! Wait right here and don't touch anything!" Ollivander seemed happy for a distraction, before rushing to the front of the shop.

Severus stared at the boxes of wands and wondered if there was a way to feel any closer yet any further away from becoming a real wizard. If none of the wands claimed him, would that mean that he wouldn't be allowed a wand? Would he have to go to Bulgaria? He doubted that his mother or father would allow that. Despair welled up in his throat and he tried not to cry.

"STUPEFY!" There was a loud crack and a cry of pain as a red light illuminated the front of the shop.

Severus was on his feet before he realized what he was doing. Still, he hung back. Surely his mother and Mr. Ollivander would be fine. He'd just get in the way. Wandless and only just eleven years of age, Severus wouldn't stand a chance against a wand carrying adult.

"C'mon, leave the wench!" shouted a gruff voice, "The safe should be through here!"

"Aww, but I wanted ta' feel her up a bit more!" replied another man in a high-pitched whine.

Severus saw red. His mum was in trouble, he knew that much, and even though she could be cruel and neglectful, she had her tenderness as well. She still kissed his forehead before he went to sleep at night and warded his door so that his father could not enter. She loved him, even though her love was rough, worn, and poorly practiced.

Looking around for something large enough to use as a bludgeoning weapon, his eyes alighted on the boxes of wands.

'Well, it's not like I need to do much,' he thought to himself, 'Just enough to stop them. And they used a spell... _stupefy_? I can use it too. I have magic. I know I do. I can do it too.'

Shoving a bunch of wands into his pockets, he began to creep quietly down the aisle, listening for movement.

It sounded like there were only the two men, but both sounded rough and mean. Severus knew enough about the muggle sort of hoodlums to know it in the magical world as well. The main difference so far seemed to be that instead of guns or knives, these men simply used wands instead.

He peered around the corner from the shadows, getting a good look at the two wizards properly. The wizard with the gruff voice was tall and skinny. His pointed hat was on askew and pulled down tightly to hide a bald head. What he lacked in hair follicles he seemed to make up for in nose hairs, as he nearly appeared to have a moustache growing from his nostrils. The whiny wizard seemed to be as thick as the first man was tall, and he had long, braided blond hair that ended at the small of his back. Rather than looking graceful, it reminded Severus of many yellow rat tails.

"Let's be quick Fergus," the gruff wizard said, "we don't want the Aurors to get tipped off and catch us."

"There's no chance of that now, boss!" Fergus replied, pulling the sign on the shop around from OPEN to CLOSED and locking the door with a click. "Now then, where were we?"

Severus knew that he'd only have one chance to hit them, so he set about finding a good vantage point. He hoped that these criminals would be squeamish about attacking a kid, though he knew that there were no guarantees that this would be the case.

There was a crash as the two men apparently found the back office and smashed through the door with a loudly shouted spell that Severus couldn't quite make out. He got to the front of the shop at last and found Mr. Ollivander sprawled backwards over the front counter, blood dripping down his forehead.

His mother lay crumpled on her side next to the fireplace, her face frozen in surprise. It looked as though one of the men had stomped on her wand hand. Two of her fingers appeared to be bent at odd angles and covered in the mud from a boot, but it was the snapped wand, lying in two with a pure white hair sticking from either side that caused Severus to curl his fingers tightly into fists of fury.

"I promise, I'll stop them, Mum!" he hissed, grabbing one wand with his left hand and holding the others in his right.

"Who's this, then?"

Severus froze. He'd been so focused on getting revenge that he hadn't heard the two men returning.

" _Stupe—_ " the thin wizard started, but Severus had already ducked behind a shelf.

"Where's the little blighter? I'll kill 'im!" the short, squat wizard snarled.

"You do that. I'm going to search Ollivander. His papers weren't in the safe, though there were a few Galleons to make it worth our while. Figures that the old man would keep them on his person."

Severus could hear the heavy footfalls of the other thief as he jumped across the aisle and ran into shadow again. His anger and fear mixed together until he felt that he might explode, his feet nearly silent in the shabby boots he wore from years of practice at being quiet.

He ducked down behind a crate and steeled himself. He needed to do this, for his mother and to help Mr. Ollivander, who had only wanted to help him find the right wand. But as he looked down at the wands in his hands, he knew the truth: none of them were truly _his_.

"That doesn't matter, though," he whispered.

"Where are ya, ya little creep?" the whiny voiced wizard was drawing closer to the crate, and Severus closed his eyes, focusing on the wand in his hand, trying to push all of the anger and fear into it, as though his power was a thin thread of energy extending from his hand into its length.

"Ya gotta come out some—"

It was then that Severus leapt out from behind the crate, wand in his left hand and shouted, " _STUPEFY_!"

The blast of red light hit the man so hard in the chest that he flew backwards through the air before landing hard on the ground, frozen in a comical pose.

He didn't realize the shadow that had snuck up behind him.

" _Expelliarmus_!" shouted the tall, thin wizard, and Severus flew against the crate, his wands pulled from his grasp by the spell.

Turning, he scrambled back against the crate as the tall man advanced upon him, his wand drawn at Severus in a threatening manner.

"So. You gave us more trouble than expected. Pretty good for a kid. But you're still just a kid, in the end."

The man sheathed his wand in the folds of his scarlet robes and pulled something out from one of the pockets on the other side.

A knife.

"Fergus is a bit of a moron, but you hurt him, and he's my partner, so I'm gonna leave you with a little scar to remind you what happens when a little shite like you tries to be the big hero. After all, I'm not called Carver for nothing."

Severus stared, his eyes frozen with terror as the man advanced with the knife. Even though he hadn't been frozen with any spell, he could feel his body reacting instinctively, freezing in place like a fawn hiding in the grass from a wolf.

It was too bad that he'd already been spotted.

Somehow, the thought didn't make him scared. It filled Severus with a cool, righteous anger. How dare these men come into this special shop, where witches and wizards had been getting their wands for hundreds of years! How dare they hurt his mum and Mr. Ollivander!

"Any last words, little rabbit?" Carver grinned cruelly.

"Damn you to the deepest pit of Hell!" Severus snarled back, causing the other man to pause a moment.

"You're wandless, defenseless. Do not claim to be more than you are, you stupid little kid!" Carver replied, brandishing the knife menacingly.

A new feeling, like lightning and fire, seemed to build from deep within his chest. It radiated out to the tips of his fingers and Severus knew that the power wasn't in the wands that surrounded him. _He_ was the power. _He_ was the lightning strike. He just needed a lightning rod to focus that power, and then… _then_ he would be unstoppable.

"I...am...a...WIZARD!" Severus screamed, throwing out his left hand cocked to the side as though he were about to catch something.

"Hah! Was that supposed to—" Carver fell silent as a strange, high hiss, like the sound of a teakettle on the boil filled the air, which had grown thick and muggy like the calm before a thunderstorm. Something hot and sharp pierced his shoulder and he screamed, dropping the knife.

Severus knew it was in his hand even before he opened his eyes. It just felt _right_ in a way that the other wands had not. It was dark with tiny etchings that he somehow knew, that were somehow familiar as though he'd seen them every day even though he knew that this was the first time he'd laid eyes on it.

"Ohhhhhh-ahh-unhhh-I'll _kill_ you for that!" Carver was clutching his shoulder and trying to use his injured arm to fumble for his wand, but his fingers were useless and he howled with impotent rage.

" _STUPEFY_!" Severus shot back, screaming until his voice was raw, " _STUPEFY STUPEFY STUPEFY STUPEFY_!"

Wave after wave of red light blasted the man and he fell over as though he were made of stone. Severus could feel the power drain from his body, and he fell to his knees, his breaths coming fast as he struggled to control the wild hammering of his heart in his chest.

It was then that he heard Ollivander groan and his mother cry out in pain. Without even thinking, he got to his feet and ran until he was at his mother's side. She was having trouble standing up with her fingers broken, so he pulled her up gently and helped her back into the chair by the fire.

"It's cold," was all she said, shivering and obviously in shock.

"Let me see, Miss...er...Mrs. Snape," Ollivander said, and Severus realized that the wandmaker had already healed the cut on his forehead.

She held her hand out gingerly as though expecting a trick, but Ollivander merely took her wrist gently and turned her hand over to see the fingers.

"Shhhh, now," he said, "Close your eyes. It shall be but the work of a moment."

Severus was surprised when his mother closed her eyes, the lines relaxing around her mouth, making her seem far younger than she was.

Ollivander began to sing, then, a short little song in a language that Severus supposed must be Latin, as he knew that most spells were derived from it.

His mother's fingers didn't seem to snap back into place the way they had when she'd worked on herself after his father had hit her in a drunken rage. They seemed to blur and reform gently in the light of the magic, and it was then that Severus realized that magic wasn't just a desperate thing to heal or fight back when cornered, but a beautiful art in its own right.

When Ollivander finished, he looked at Severus and smiled wearily.

"I see that your wand has chosen you, young Severus. I am pleased with the match. I trust that you are as well, even though the core is unicorn?"

Severus nodded emphatically before his gaze turned towards the broken wand that Ollivander held in his other hand.

"But...what about mum's…?" Severus bit his lip when he saw his mother flinch at the sight of her broken wand.

"I graciously offer to replace your wand free of charge for the actions of your son have saved me losing my secrets. But, first I shall send a Patronus to the Aurors so they may come get those thugs. I suspect that Severus here has the situation quite well in hand, though, don't you, my boy?" Ollivander smiled, and Severus could see that this was a genuine smile, not simply professional politeness.

"Thank you, sir," he replied as Ollivander stepped out the front door with his wand drawn.

"I am _so_ proud of you, Severus." His eyes went wide when his mother wrapped her long, thin arms around him tightly and pulling him close. "I knew you could do it."

His mother did not take long to receive her new wand, which was, as Mr. Ollivander called it, "an excellent match."

It was slightly longer than her other wand with intricate vine-like whorls on its handle, but he could tell that she agreed wholeheartedly.

There was a reward for the apprehending of the two goons, who were apparently well-known on Knockturn Alley and had been wanted for a long list of crimes, but when Severus received the small bag of Galleons from the Ministry Official who showed up at the front door of the shabby house on Spinner's End, he already knew what he would do with them.

"Here, Mum," he said softly, handing the bag to her, watching her eyes widen as she opened it.

"Severus… I—" she started but he shook his head and ran out of the kitchen before she could finish.

"I'm going out to play!" he called out, even though the sky was gray and threatening to rain outside.

He closed the door behind him and sagged against it pulling the wand from the pocket he'd sewed into his sleeve, and stared at it with awe.

"Soon," he whispered softly to the length of wood, imagining that he could feel a warmth from within the wood press back against his hand as though in reply.


End file.
